It isn\u2019t like what I see online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It could have been a witch. Dark cloak and a creeping way of moving around the room. Grabbing my wrist until I wake up and can\u2019t move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, my visitor has a knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stores it on the inside of his cheek, wet against his fangless gums. Plucks it from his mouth as he kneels on my throat. He raises the blade to his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I choke on the glitter. The colors he cuts out of his throat. Sounds like a hard rain filling my nose and mouth. A mineral crunch every time I try to move my jaws. To ask him to stop or to let me breathe. To ask him why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This happens every night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, with glitter in your eyes, it\u2019s easier to make sense of the demon in your bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The little cuts bring out the loveliest colors. Like those creatures on the ocean floor, eyes bugged out to take in 10,000 more colors than a human can observe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what it\u2019s like when I look at him. Glowing something unearthly as I run out of breath. But, he\u2019s running out of glitter, slowing from the gape in his throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the part that sends me searching for answers. What to do here in this almost-out moment between us. What I have to do to keep him from killing me each night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I read somewhere that this is where you can find some autonomy. You may gain the ability to speak or move an arm again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One blog recommended carving the sigil of an archangel in his chest. If you don\u2019t have a knife on hand, you can use your nails. Really sink them into the skin, deep enough to feel fluid. But when I claw the shapes, I feel my jaws grow further apart. The glitter piles under my tongue. I die until morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another article instructed me to make a small offering. So I ask him to take my fingernails, painted in countless shades. But when he slips them into his mouth, the glitter burrows deeper into my eyes and I bleed color from my irises. I hate that it makes me feel beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By morning, the fingernails have dissolved on his tongue and I\u2019ve watched the whole disintegration. My research proves ineffective here. I spend the day plumbing the depths of my computer screen, learning how to get rid of sleep paralysis demons, taking naps to practice my new knowledge, filling my body with colored plastics and aluminum. Pretty soon I\u2019m poking myself with the knife just to watch the glitter come out. The demons laps it up with his tongue. He crawls around my ankles in the waking hours too. In motion and paralysis, we\u2019re connected by the colors I couldn\u2019t see before he first cut his throat for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw a movie once where hell was shown as an expanse of ashen dunes, glorious, nauseating, sad. That\u2019s what’s become of my room in the last weeks. But it\u2019s colors that we wade through each day, from the bed to the computer and back. Awful ones, haunting goddamn colors I wish I couldn\u2019t see. No ashes to eat. Only glitter to slide down our throats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He even lets me be the demon now\u2014has dug a hole as his bed to settle for the night. I stand on his throat, dig the knife from his mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
________<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caleb Bethea is the author of <\/em>DISCO MURDER CITY (Maudlin House ’25). Follow along to get DISCO MURDERED at<\/em> http:\/\/CalebBethea.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"